Identifying and illuminating live Grateful Dead shows (and shows by band members) that are unknown or poorly documented.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

"Reflections" Reflections (Round Records RX-107)

Jerry Garcias's solo album Reflections, released in February 1976 on Round Records

Jerry Garcia's third solo album Reflections was released on Round Records in February 1976. The album was well received when it was released, and on the rare occasions when I hear any of it, it still sounds pretty good. The album featured four songs recorded by the Grateful Dead and four recorded by what was the Jerry Garcia Band at the time, featuring Nicky Hopkins on piano, along with John Kahn and Ron Tutt. While a few connected people had some tapes in those days, most people didn't, and Jerry Garcia tapes were even rarer, so Reflections gave a contemporary picture of Jerry Garcia's music at the end of 1975 that wasn't available otherwise.

Of course, even at the time I knew that some of the songs had been floating around for a while. I owned a bootleg Grateful Dead lp with "Comes A Time" on it, and I knew "They Love Each Other" and "It Must Have Been The Roses" from live shows. Still, the recordings on Reflections were very well done, and they wouldn't have fit on Blues For Allah. There were two new songs as well, namely "Might As Well" and "Mission In The Rain," and they were pretty good. The three cover versions were excellent choices but suitably obscure ("Catfish John," "I'll Take A Melody" and "Tore Up Over You"), and the configuration of the record was typical of solo albums at the time. A few tracks with the parent group, some originals and some hip-but-obtuse covers--Reflections was an excellent specimen of a typical mid-70s solo album by the front man of a major group.

Reflections was released in February, 1976. Nicky Hopkins had already left the Jerry Garcia Band by that time, but the group had continued on with Keith and Donna Godchaux on board. Over the years, the genesis of the album has been described by Bob Weir, John Kahn and others as a compromise. Kahn, quoted in Blair Jackson's book, said "the album was supposed to be a Jerry Garcia Band album, but it sort of fell apart in the middle, so it ended up being half that and half Grateful Dead" (Jackson, p. 270). Given Nicky Hopkins personal and health problems in the Fall of 1975, it makes a plausible story. And yet, an analysis of the recording information provided on the All Good Things box set leads us to some unexpected conclusions. I think the Grateful Dead were working on another album, and that work got sidetracked into a Jerry Garcia album out of financial necessity.

Tracks 1, 3, 5 and 8 recorded at Ace's Studio in August and September 1975

Tracks 2, 4, 6 and 7 recorded at His Master's Wheels in October and November 1975

Mixed at His Master's Wheels

Mastered at Columbia Recorders

Kahn's description of the history of the album seems to be contradicted by the session history. The Grateful Dead recorded four songs in Bob Weir's studio (Ace's) in August and September 1975, before the Jerry Garcia Band was even formed. The studio sessions with Nicky Hopkins and Larry Knechtel (on electric piano, mostly) happened later. How did the Jerry Garcia Band sessions "fall apart," if the Jerry Garcia Band did not yet exist?

It's possible that the session listings are incorrect. However, a comment from Garcia seems to confirm the timeline, if somewhat implicitly (quote via Deaddisc):

A lot of the energy from that record [Reflections] is really a continuation of the Blues For Allah groove that we got into. We sort of continued the same energy because we were having a lot of fun doing it.

The work at Ace's on Blues For Allah had lasted from January through June. So it seems like the August sessions were following on the earlier Blues For Allah album. So what was the Garcia album that "fell apart?" Like many Grateful Dead stories, it has been repeated so often that even the principals seem to accept it. Yet the evidence doesn't appear to support it. What could really have been happening?

Some Considerations
Without additional information, I can only speculate on the actual dynamics underlying the recording of Reflections. Of course, speculation is my specialty, but even I am unable to rank any of these factors in order of importance. It is up to the reader to decide which factors may have been the most important. So, in no particular order:

A listing from the Fremont Argus of August 18, 1975, for the "Jerry Garcia Band" at the Great American Music Hall. In fact, Garcia played with the Keith And Donna Band (note Les Paul the next two nights)

Consider: Garcia Had No Band
In July, Garcia had stopped playing with Merl Saunders. This was quite a surprise to Merl, apparently, and John Kahn was deputized to deliver the bad news to his friend. Was there a planned Garcia album with Merl that got stifled? It's interesting to consider that in August 1975, Garcia was playing shows with the Keith and Donna Godchaux band while recording what would become Reflections with the Grateful Dead. It certainly causes me to re-think the timing of Garcia's dismissal of Merl Saunders, because if an album was imminent, I don't know what to make of it. If Garcia was planning a solo album, he must have had a greater urgency to dump Merl than he ever admitted. However, whatever Garcia's frustration with Saunders, I don't think he was thinking about a solo album in the Summer.

Consider: Round Records Had Dire Cash Flow Problems
McNally describes the difficult situation that Grateful Dead Records had fallen into in mid-1975. The band had spent a lot of money on the Wall Of Sound and the Grateful Dead movie, and they had stopped touring. The Dead had borrowed a lot of money from the Bank Of Boston, so Ron Rakow had gotten a cash infusion by signing a distribution deal with United Artists, along with an international distribution deal with Atlantic. However, the Grateful Dead had no income and they owed money all over the place. I have written at some length about how cash flow problems defined the history of Round Records.

Consider: Recording At Ace's Was Cheap
While recording in Bob Weir's garage was not completely free--there were expenses--there were no studio fees and the band did not need to be paid. Recording in a San Francisco studio with professional musicians would have meant laying out cash that the Dead didn't have. So if Round Records needed Jerry Garcia "product" to sell, recording with the Dead at Ace's was the quickest and cheapest way to go. Three of the four songs the band recorded already had established arrangements, so the recordings must have come easily.

The confusing part of my semi-hypothesis is the apparent conclusion: why did Jerry Garcia only record half a solo album with the Grateful Dead? Bob Weir had already recorded a solo album with the Dead as backing musicians, so it wasn't as if the band was ashamed of the concept. Sure, the restless Garcia was always anxious to do something different, but Round Records was a business. If Garcia had recorded half an album with the Dead, why couldn't he finish it up with them? Or do a few songs acoustic, and play with David Grisman or something? There were four original songs, which was plenty for a solo album that could be filled out with hip cover versions. If Round Records needed money, couldn't Garcia just knock out a musically superior collection of songs, and sell a few records? The next year he could focus on something special. Why would Garcia have recorded half an album at Ace's?

The Jerry Garcia Band At His Master's Wheels
The Jerry Garcia Band with Nicky Hopkins debuted at Sophie's in Palo Alto on September 18, 1975. A few shows had been billed at Keystone Berkeley as "Jerry Garcia" or "Jerry Garcia Band" for August, but those shows were played by Garcia and the Keith And Donna band. Whether this was a scheduling problem with Hopkins or had some other motive is uncertain to me. It is still interesting to note that while Garcia was playing the Keystone with Keith and Donna in August and rehearsing Hopkins for the band in September, he was recording with the Dead at Ace's.

His Master's Wheels was in San Francisco at 60 Brady Street, just behind the Fillmore West. It had previously been Alembic Studios, and prior to that it had been Pacific High Recorders. In 1974, Alembic sold the studio to producer Elliot Mazer. It appears that the Jerry Garcia Band went into His Master's Wheels in October 1975 to begin recording Reflections. The exact dates for recording are uncertain, but its easy to bracket the time frame. The JGB had played four dates in September, and they played about six dates in October between October 8 and October 22, when the band began an extended tour of the Eastern seaboard. So the recordings must have been done in the first half of October, in between the various shows in the Bay Area.

The Eastern tour ended November 1 in Washington, DC. The JGB began a Midwestern tour in Chicago on November 21, so it seems clear that the second sessions were in the first three weeks of November, interrupted by a few Keystone Berkeley shows. Outtakes from circulating tapes and the All Good Things box set show the Jerry Garcia Band trying out many of the rock songs associated with him, even if some of them hadn't been played in a few years, like "You Win Again" and "Hey Bo Diddley." Yet on some of the outtake tracks, the grand piano isn't played by Nicky Hopkins but by Los Angeles studio legend Larry Knechtel (check out Knechtel's discography).

Knechtel plays some electric piano in support of Hopkins on Reflections, possibly overdubbed to give more texture to the tracks. However, although participants seem reluctant to disclose details, it appears that Hopkins was not available for some or all of the November sessions, and Knechtel had to fill in. There's even a whiff that Knechtel did some overdubbing of Hopkins' piano parts. Hopkins was a studio legend, and rightly so, and thus it would have seemed that the environment would have brought out the best in him, but apparently the opposite was the case. Hopkins was a very nice man, so no one liked speaking ill of him, but he had serious health problems separate from his preference for drugs and drinking, and he seems to have simply failed to answer the bell.

Knechtel was a fine player, but obviously the opportunity to take advantage of Hopkins' live experience with Garcia was lost. Apparently, when Blair Jackson asked Knechtel about playing with Garcia, Knechtel didn't recall it. Knechtel had played with everybody, so I wouldn't read too much into that, but it does suggest that Knechtel's role was after the fact, cleaning up what Hopkins had muffed, possibly with just John Kahn in the studio.

Presumably, if Hopkins' health prevented his appearance, or if he was unable to deliver the goods in the studio, Garcia must have needed to fall back to a Plan B. Whatever exactly Rakow had promised United Artists, they plainly had to release something. Thus Garcia must have taken the four tracks with the Dead and the best four tracks with Hopkins, and made a pretty good album out of them. It looks like a few overdubs were done near the end of the process, with harmony vocals from Weir and Donna Godchaux, and a little percussion from Hart, as well as possible overdubs by Knechtel. Reflections was released in February 1976, and the Kingfish album was released in March, so UA got their Garcia and Weir albums.

What Was Plan A?
In retrospect, Kahn's overview of Reflections makes sense: "the album was supposed to be a Jerry Garcia Band album, but it sort of
fell apart in the middle, so it ended up being half that and half
Grateful Dead." Garcia, Kahn and Tutt seem to have gotten Nicky Hopkins in order to form the Jerry Garcia Band, and they had plans to make a Jerry Garcia solo album at His Master's Wheels. Garcia knew Hopkins from his Quicksilver Messenger Service days, and he was a living legend--The Kinks had written a song about Hopkins called "Session Man" 9 years earlier--so it seemed like a good plan. Yet Hopkins let them down, due to some combination of circumstances. As a result, 4 tracks were salvaged from those sessions, and four tracks from Grateful Dead sessions were used as well.

Yet why had the Grateful Dead been recording at Ace's in August and September? Garcia had a plan in place for his own solo album, so why were the Dead recording Garcia/Hunter songs? I think the Grateful Dead were actually beginning work on their next album, and the tracks got borrowed by Garcia. Although Rakow's words always have to be taken with a grain of salt, he told McNally that UA had been promised 4 Grateful Dead albums along with solo albums by Garcia and Weir. The band had the '74 Winterland shows in the can, although it would later turn out that those tapes were in poor shape.

Blues For Allah would have been the first UA album, and the Winterland tapes would have accounted for two more (according to the contractual orthodoxy of the time, double albums could count as two albums). Weir was already working with Kingfish, and they had some original material. Garcia and Kahn had plans for the Jerry Garcia Band. That would still leave one album unaccounted for.

I think the August and September 1975 sessions at Ace's were meant for a forthcoming Grateful Dead album. "Might As Well" was a new song, but the other three had never been released by the Dead. Obviously, we'll never know what else might have been recorded had they continued. The increasing stress of record company business had made the Dead's own situation more precarious. According to Rakow, he threatened UA with bankrupting the Grateful Dead in order to get out of the contract if they did not receive more money. Whether or not Rakow actually voiced that threat to UA--he certainly could have--it was a sign of desperation. By December of 1975, when Garcia had returned from touring with Hopkins, Garcia would have needed to take over the songs for his own album, and any possible plans for a subsequent album were pushed aside.

Garcia had a bit more to say about the Dead sessions that ended up on
Reflections. "It was a continuation of what we were doing with Blues for
Allah. We were having fun in the studio is what it boils down to, and
that's pretty rare for us. The energy was there, and I thought, 'I've
got a solo album coming up. Let's cut these tracks with the Grateful
Dead. I've already taught them the tunes.'" (Jackson p.271)

So by Garcia's account, the Dead-recorded tunes were meant for his next solo album all along. What
Garcia doesn't mention is that he didn't have his own band when they
started recording in August/September. So using the Dead would have been
a necessary step, if he wanted to start recording right away.

But
the Nicky Hopkins JGB formed in mid-September - it seems no coincidence
that the Dead stopped recording then, and the JGB sessions picked up
where they left off almost immediately, in October.

I am not
certain why the JGB had to head to His Master's Wheels when the much
cheaper Ace's was available - except, perhaps it wasn't. Weir &
Kingfish rehearsed & recorded their album at Ace's, probably around
the same time (this should be checked), so the JGB would have had to
find another studio.

There's also the unspoken issue that the
Dead had already spent half the year in the studio recording Blues for
Allah. As "fun" as Garcia says the sessions were - this was a guy who
habitually spent months in the studio working on albums - I suspect that
some of the other Dead members were probably getting burned-out by
September and were happy to relinquish the sessions to the new JGB.

I
would take Garcia's word that he was planning another solo album in
mid-'75, right after finishing Allah. Weir would probably have been able
to scrape up enough songs for half a Dead album, but I doubt anyone
expected the Dead to record two albums in a row. Rather, Rakow would
likely have been nudging Garcia for another solo album for Round, since a
Garcia album would do well.

So on one hand, perhaps Garcia intended a solo album all along, which makes the timing of his firing of Merl Saunders even more significant. Of course, Garcia could have been making up a plausible story as to why Reflections was recorded the way it was. One point I would make about late 1975 would be to remember that the Dead weren't touring that year--why wouldn't they record a second album in a year? What else were they going to do? In any case, LIA's comments give us yet another angle to consider.

Maybe I'm overreaching by constructing a narrative of a lost Grateful Dead album from some fragmentary, after-the-fact interviews. But if my hypothesis is incorrect, what's the alternative explanation? The timeline doesn't particularly make sense. Now, it's possible that initially Round Records' finances were so dire that Garcia thought he would have to make his whole solo album with the Dead, and discovered he had a budget halfway through. Even so, it makes for a strange series of events that has been glossed over with an easy-to-digest explanation. For now, until someone can peel off another layer of the onion, I'm going to say that there were plans afoot for another studio Grateful Dead album in the Fall of 1975, and they slipped away with Nicky Hopkins' health and a hefty debt owed to the Bank Of Boston.

16 comments:

Garcia had a bit more to say about the Dead sessions that ended up on Reflections. "It was a continuation of what we were doing with Blues for Allah. We were having fun in the studio is what it boils down to, and that's pretty rare for us. The energy was there, and I thought, 'I've got a solo album coming up. Let's cut these tracks with the Grateful Dead. I've already taught them the tunes.'" (Jackson p.271)

So by Garcia's account, the Dead-recorded tunes were meant for his next solo album all along.What Garcia doesn't mention is that he didn't have his own band when they started recording in August/September. So using the Dead would have been a necessary step, if he wanted to start recording right away.But the Nicky Hopkins JGB formed in mid-September - it seems no coincidence that the Dead stopped recording then, and the JGB sessions picked up where they left off almost immediately, in October.

I am not certain why the JGB had to head to His Master's Wheels when the much cheaper Ace's was available - except, perhaps it wasn't. Weir & Kingfish rehearsed & recorded their album at Ace's, probably around the same time (this should be checked), so the JGB would have had to find another studio.

There's also the unspoken issue that the Dead had already spent half the year in the studio recording Blues for Allah. As "fun" as Garcia says the sessions were - this was a guy who habitually spent months in the studio working on albums - I suspect that some of the other Dead members were probably getting burned-out by September and were happy to relinquish the sessions to the new JGB.

I would take Garcia's word that he was planning another solo album in mid-'75, right after finishing Allah. Weir would probably have been able to scrape up enough songs for half a Dead album, but I doubt anyone expected the Dead to record two albums in a row. Rather, Rakow would likely have been nudging Garcia for another solo album for Round, since a Garcia album would do well.

I am not sure how much to read into Knechtel's involvement. If Hopkins was collapsing drunk in the studio a mere month or two after joining the band, that would have been a pretty big warning sign for Garcia! There could have been other reasons for him to bring in a second keyboard player, or for Hopkins to be unavailable. In any case, with half an album already in the can, the JGB didn't even have to record that much to finish it, so I don't think an absent Hopkins would have caused too many problems.

One wonders if there's a Dead studio version of Mission in the Rain hiding in the vaults...

Great comments, LIA, as always. I do wonder about Mission In The Rain, too. I updated the post with most of this Comment, as it adds so much.

The one comment on your Comment would be to ask why wouldn't the Dead record two albums in a year. They weren't doing anything else in 1975. Yes, Kingfish and Keith and Donna were touring around a little bit, but nothing like the Dead--they slept at home almost every night.

Of course it didn't work out that way, but recording Blues For Allah 2 (oh I wish) seems like a perfectly plausible plan to have had in mid-75.

I also wish they'd continued with the Allah experiment. But a few things make me think it less plausible -

1) The lack of songs. After coming up with all-new material for Allah, Garcia was now digging into his bag of unrecorded early-'70s songs, and Weir was almost dry when it came to new songs. I don't think they'd consider that a good starting-point for a new album, unless they wanted to spend a while working up new material in the studio again.

2) The amount of time in the studio. Allah took 4-5 months (even though they rushed at the end to meet the UA deadline), and I doubt all of the Dead were looking forward to repeating that process right away.

3) The songs recorded. If we had a Dead studio-session logbook, we'd know what else they tried in Aug/Sep '75 - but recording three older Garcia songs seems like a huge jump away from the whole Allah "create-it-in-the-studio" idea.

4) The amount they could release. While I'm sure the Dead albums sold better than Round efforts, nonetheless they all would have been aware that the time spent NOT working on a Dead album was time where Garcia, Weir, Hart etc. could all work on their own side-projects & come up with 2 or 3 albums, which they did. Weir was recording with Kingfish at roughly the same time Garcia was recording with the JGB.

5) Their stated plans. Both Garcia and Weir had been planning "solo" albums for some time - as far back as November '74, Rakow was pressuring Garcia to record his next solo album soon. The February '75 Deadhead newsletter had said that Garcia was "preparing material for a solo album which will be recorded in the Spring and released in the Summer," and said the same of Weir. Hype, perhaps (especially in Weir's case) - but, after getting the year's Dead album out of the way, they both did proceed straight to their new projects, per plan.

6) The movie. Garcia announced in September 1975 that the movie would be ready for release in spring 1976. He was off by a year - but editing the film required continual work on his part, and a lot of that work was done in 1975, requiring some time off from the Dead. The Dead didn't start another studio album until winter 1977, skipping 1976 altogether with a hastily patched-together live album (with no Garcia involvement!), so I think trying to finish the film took priority over starting a new Dead album.

LIA, you present an excellent counter-hypothesis, and it very well maybe so. Given the passage of time, any analyst has to choose which theory they find more likely. For myself, I choose to think that the Dead had quit touring and financed Ace's so that they could become a recording band. Thus when they started recording in August, they were planning on a studio album for 1976.

With the 4 songs they recorded, plus Mission In The Rain, that would be half an album. If the Dead thought they had six months to come up with the other half, it was reasonable to expect a song or two from Weir, a song or two from Garcia/Hunter, and perhaps another song (from Lesh, or Keith, or Hunter, or a cover).

None of it worked out that way, and I think subsequent comments were just to color over their disappointment. If Garcia had really thought a 1976 studio album was imminent, he would have gritted his teeth and written a few songs with Hunter. Without an album coming, he didn't do so.

I'm sure Garcia and Weir planned solo albums as well, and Garcia's was going to be with is own band. Whenever Garcia was willing to write songs--which wasn't often--Hunter always delivered, so the key was Jerry's motivations, not anyone else's.

I believe the Grateful Dead did not play together from September 28, 1975 and May 28, 1976. Whatever the reasons, any nascent album went down the rabbit hole. Clearly with the Movie expenses, Hopkins' problems, and the collapse of Round, all of the Dead's plans for the future were scuttled. Like anyone in that situation, Garcia reconfigured the past to make it seem more like Reflections had been planned all along, but I don't think that was originally the case.

It's a good point that the Dead seem not to have played together at all for over half a year. (We have some rehearsals dated late April 1976, but still, that's their longest time apart.)

Garcia didn't need to write any songs for his own album - the original intent could have been to make it an all-cover album, like Compliments had been. (The available outtakes seem to be all jams & covers.) So he could easily have done that almost concurrently with doing a Dead album, like he had in 1974.

If Garcia was planning more recording with the Dead, though, we have to ask what specifically happened in Sept '75 to derail those plans & turn it into a JGB project instead... My best guess is, Nicky Hopkins' arrival.

At any rate, even in mid-1976 the Dead decided not to return to recording (perhaps they felt too rusty after those months off) - instead Phil set to work on the live album. It must have seemed the quickest way to get an album out fast, rather than doing more studio sessions. (UA deadlines were also a factor.)

I love the idea of "Blues For Allah II," or whatever, and want to throw the amazing outtake jam "Orpheus" into the discussion, from the "All Good Things" box. Of course, one studio jam doesn't mean they were mining for new ideas ala the spring "Allah" sessions, but it also suggests that the post-"Allah" get-togethers weren't ONLY for Garcia's solo album. Probably just more for the argument that they really were having fun.

Also, I can imagine Weir wanting some of his own time in his sparkling new home studio. I've always found it interesting, though, that the Dead never really returned to Ace's.

I don't have the Reflections disc around, but is the "Orpheus" jam actually dated from the Aug/Sep '75 Reflections session in the CD?

Because that exact same track is here, on a reel said to be from March '75 (tracks 20-23) - near the start of the Allah sessions: http://archive.org/details/gd1975-06-07.bluesruffs.sbd.smith.94427.sbeok.flac16

I would believe the earlier dating myself, unless the CD notes actually give a specific date for it.

I saw the Dead in the Sports Arena in Atlanta, a wrestling venue before wrestling was cool (about the size of a smallish high school gym), sometime in what must have the early 70's. Apparently their equipment plane got grounded so they borrowed some equipment from a local group. After a set they invited that group to join them on stage; the Allman Brothers. Tres cool.

The problem in the record industry back in the day wasn't selling records, it was getting paid. Records were sent to distributors on credit, who gave them to record stores on credit. When the record stores sold the records, they paid the distributors (unless they went out of business), who in turn paid the record companies. If the distributor was feeling a squeeze, which they usually were, they would slow-pay clients. Its a common business practice, even for non-crooks (which apparently couldn't be said about everyone in the record distribution business).

However, if you tried to slow-pay Columbia on a Bob Dylan album, they'd make sure that you got your Paul Simon albums would come really, really late and all your clients would scream bloody murder and switch.

So they'd slow play an indie like Round/Grateful Dead--how were they going to be punished, by late delivery of the Keith And Donna album? This was the aspect of the business that Ron Rakow underestimated, which ultimately did the company in.

Garcia was once asked by Relix why the record company didn't work out: "For a variety of reasons. We didn't have the time or the output. For a record company to work, you have to have accounts going with distributors. In other words, they won't pay you for the records that are coming in. When you send them the new batch of records, they pay you for the ones you already sold. So there's this long credit overlap. And a lot of times they don't pay. A lot of times, they burn you. And we got involved with records with uncannily perfect timing, just the year when polyvinyl chloride went up 7 million percent and oil shortages started to break in heavy. And that same year was the year we got involved. So all of a sudden here we were having to dicker for virgin vinyl, which there was no more."

A good, interesting interview overall; for instance Garcia talks about why the Dead were not doing any Vault releases. This is also the interview where he says outright that he played on Bobby Freeman's "Do You Want To Dance"...a Garcia fib!